


Size Matters

by teand



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Bad Puns, M/M, Transformation, alien tech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-19
Updated: 2009-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:25:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teand/pseuds/teand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack runs afoul of some alien tech and although he's naked, at least this time he's not a cat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Size Matters

"Ianto! Over here!"

Heart in his throat, Ianto fought his way across the storeroom. Rounding a stack of crates, he caught sight of Gwen down on one knee and picked up speed, going over a pile of engine parts rather than around it. "Is he…?"

He wasn't there. Although his clothes were, sprawled out on the floor in front of an open crate.

Gwen finished patting down Jack's greatcoat and looked up. "There's no blood. No sign of foul play."

"Except that wherever Jack is, he's apparently naked."

"Not all that unusual really," Gwen pointed out as she stood.

In all fairness, Ianto had to admit she had a point and if there was one person in all of time and space who considered nudity to be an advantage rather than a handicap that person was Captain Jack Harkness. He took a deep breath, the first he could remember taking since Tosh had announced Jack's disappearance, and tried to consider the situation logically.

The Rift had spit out something called a Direwu that was both impervious to bullets and generated an electro-magnetic field that nullified tasers. The last time it had appeared, back in the thirties, Torchwood had managed to cobble together a weapon that worked and Jack was pretty sure he knew where that weapon was -- given how Torchwood never threw anything away. He'd headed down to the storeroom, there'd been an energy spike and…

"Ianto!"

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Gwen's hand dropped to her sidearm. And the fact that they'd armed up to go to a storeroom said more about working at Torchwood than Ianto wanted to think about.

"It sounded like…"

"Ianto!"

"…someone calling my name." Frowning, he scanned the surrounding crates. Blinked. Pointed toward the top of a box marked _lost marbles; found_ in Jack's bold scrawl. "Uh… Gwen."

He knew exactly when she spotted what he was pointing at. She blinked as well. It seemed to be the required response. Then she shook her head and folded her arms. "Do you think he does it on purpose then?"

Ianto sighed. "At least he's not a cat this time."

As Gwen leaned a little closer, dimples flashed. "I have to admit, I always thought it'd be bigger."

"It is kind of cold down here," Ianto reminded her, just to be fair.

"Oh, ha ha, very funny." Hands on his hips, Jack glared up at them. Approximately ten centimeters high, he didn't look hurt, just a bit grubby and significantly smaller.

"Are you all right?"

"I will be shortly."

"He's fine," Gwen muttered.

"You need to find a black rod about this big," Jack continued holding his hands apart. He looked down at them and sighed. "Okay, it's about 35 centimeters long and as big around as my…" He glanced down again. "…leg. Point it at me and press the button."

"That's it?"

"Piece of cake."

"More like a petit four," Ianto sighed. Gwen snickered.

Contrary to expectations, they found the rod with no difficulty. It had rolled under the pile of engine parts and as Ianto retrieved it, he caught sight of Jack doing what seemed to be a victory dance out of the corner of one eye.

There was only one button, black on black just under what looked like a black power gauge. It looked a little like the punch line to a joke Ianto'd forgotten. "Just point it at you and push the button?"

"Yes. No! Wait! Put me on the floor first! Come on," he added when Ianto hesitated. "It's not like it's the first time you've had your hand around me."

"But it's usually less of a full body experience." He handed Gwen the rod and held out his cupped hands, moderately pleased to see they weren't trembling at the thought of how much accidental damage he could do. "It's probably safer if you just climb aboard."

Very small eyebrows rose and fell. "Not the first time I've heard that."

When Ianto was a kid, his best friend had a pair of gerbils. Jack's feet against his palm didn't feel exactly like gerbil feet but the resemblance was close enough Ianto found himself remembering how one of those gerbils had met its end under a sofa cushion and the other in the belly of the family cat. The sooner they got Jack back to full size the better. For more than the obvious reasons.

With Jack safely on the floor, he backed up to stand at Gwen's right.

"Can I?" she asked, eyes gleaming.

He folded his hands behind his back. "Be my guest."

Nothing happened.

They waited.

Nothing continued to happen.

At this distance, it was hard to hear what Jack was shouting but it sounded like _try again_. This time, Ianto watched the rod, not Jack. As Gwen pushed the button, the gauge lit up, showing a thin, red line at the very bottom.

"It's out of power."

"It's what?" Gwen turned toward him.

"Out of power," he repeated, reaching out and using the tip of one finger to move the rod slightly to one side. There was out of power and then, when there was also the potential for a major fuck up, there was out of power. And they didn't mean the same thing. Stepping forward, he dropped carefully to one knee. "What do we do now? Can I assume it's not just a matter of changing the batteries?"

Jack ran a hand back through his hair. "Why would you assume that?"

"Because it's never that easy."

***

"I'm not even sure where you'd hook it up to recharge it," Tosh admitted, turning the rod end over end. "Or what I'd recharge it with if I could find where to recharge it. What does Jack say about it?"

"Speaking of…" Perched on the edge of Tosh's desk, Owen raised both brows nearly to his hairline. "…where is our fearless leader?"

"In Ianto's pocket," Gwen told him.

"Yeah, like that's news."

Ignoring him, because ignoring Owen was one of the things he did best, Ianto set Jack's neatly folded clothes down on a chair and very carefully dipped his hand into his breast pocket. When he felt Jack climb up onto his fingers, he pulled his hand out and set Jack down on the corner of Gwen's desk.

Wearing Ianto's red handkerchief like a toga, Jack should have looked ridiculous. He didn't. He looked like Jack. Only shorter. "That thing had no charge when it went into the crate eighty odd years ago so I think I can definitively say that it recharges."

"Wait!" Face turning red, Own raised a hand. "You sound like a mouse on helium. I can't… It just isn't… I'll be right back."

"A mouse on helium?" Jack asked as they watched Owen disappear into the depths of the Hub.

Ianto shrugged. "Little tiny lungs."

"Little tiny larynx," Gwen added.

"Little tiny… um…" Tosh blushed. "…lips."

"I'll have you know, everything is perfectly proportional."

Ianto had a strong suspicion Jack was not talking about internal organs. From the way she was trying not to snicker, Gwen clearly suspected the same thing. He didn't want to know what Tosh was thinking, not given the way she suddenly put the rod down and folded her hands in her lap.

"This ought to make things a little better." Owen's voice came around the corner first, followed by Owen holding a bullhorn.

Gwen frowned. "Why do we have a bullhorn?"

Ianto glanced down at Jack, whose tiny little expression was clearly daring him to explain. "Crowd control," he said, levelly.

Jack snickered.

It took a bit of trial and error but they finally set the bullhorn up so Jack could join in the conversation. Not that the conversation went anywhere useful.

"I'm getting residual energy readings off the rod," Tosh murmured as Ianto brought Jack a coffee in the tip of a cut down and vigorously scrubbed pen lid. "They're remarkably similar to the energy weapon that was built to deal with the Direwu."

"Hardly surprising if they were in the box together," Owen pointed out.

"This thing does look a bit leaky," Gwen agreed, pushing the weapon a little further away.

They'd found it in the open crate by Jack's clothes. As far as Ianto was concerned it not only looked leaky but remarkably like a kitchen appliance gone mad. He couldn't tell if he was more impressed or appalled by the design.

"All right…" Sitting on a pad of post-it notes, Jack took a long, appreciative swallow of coffee and ran a hand back through his hair. "This is getting us nowhere fast and you lot have big day ahead of you." When Owen snickered, he shot him a look over the edge of the bullhorn that had lost nothing by being downsized. "The Direwu is completely inactive at night so even though we know approximately where it is, we'll… you'll never find it until it slithers out to catch some rays. Go home. Get some sleep. Be back here bright-eyed and bushy tailed in the morning." When Tosh began to protest, he raised a hand. "You too. I'm not suffering, and I know you'll figure this out…"

"Shortly?" Owen offered.

Gwen's nose wrinkled. "In a little bit?"

"Or you don't have to come back; I'm sure you'd both be very happy working at Tesco."

"You'd hate it here without us." Gwen grabbed her purse with one hand and Tosh's arm with the other. "Come on you, I've seen you trying not to yawn."

"What about Jack?" Owen asked, shrugging into his jacket. "He can't stay here alone."

Ianto rolled his eyes. As though anyone had thought for a moment that Jack would be alone in the Hub. "I'll be staying with him.

"Of course you will." The doctor's right eye closed in a remarkably salacious wink. "Don't break him."

***

Ianto crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling. It was weird being in Jack's bed, with Jack, still wearing his boxers and neither anticipating nor recovering from a shag. Oh sure, Jack was naked but Jack was still ten centimeters tall.

"You okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" With Jack on the pillow beside him, they'd been able to leave the bullhorn in Jack's office.

He could hear the shrug in Jack's voice. "You seem a little tense."

"I'm not tense."

"You're tense."

"I might be a bit afraid of rolling over and crushing you."

"And that's not making you tense?"

"Fine." He sighed. "Maybe a little."

"Don't worry about me, you're the least restless sleeper I've ever spent the night beside. And considering the size of my…"

Ianto closed his eyes.

"…study group…"

And opened them again. That hadn't been where he'd thought Jack was going.

"…I think I'm pretty safe. So relax."

"No." He grinned when Jack laughed. That had been the reaction he'd been going for so a win for him. "How are _you_ feeling?"

"Honestly? A bit horny."

Quel surprise. Not. "You'll have to take care of that yourself."

"I could rub up against…"

"No."

"You didn't even let me name the body part!"

"I didn't have to." He turned his head, carefully, so he could see Jack lying in a hollow pressed into the pillow, the piece of blanket he'd been covered with thrown aside, one hand lazily stroking himself. While watching Jack was always worth it -- the man was a happy exhibitionist given half a chance -- it _was_ a bit like watching porn on an iPod.

 

***

"The leakage from the energy weapon recharged the rod." Tosh set the two pieces side by side on the bench. "It took years of close confinement to gain a large enough charge to shrink Jack but I think that if I fire the weapon at the rod it should have the same effect instantaneously. Or as near to instantaneously as makes no difference," she amended thoughtfully.

"You think?" Ianto passed Jack down a flake of croissant. "It _should_ have the same effect? What if it doesn't work and Jack's stuck like this forever?"

"Technically, I'd only be stuck like this until the rod recharged through proximity again," Jack pointed out. "Which would be way too long," he added as Ianto glared at him. "Look, it's the same energy either way, I say we try it."

"I hate to be a killjoy…" Owen reached past Tosh and picked up the weapon. "…but if this thing's been leaking since the thirties, how do we know how much juice it has left in it? What if one shot's all we've got?"

Gwen waved a dismissive hand, flinging muffin crumbs over a two meter radius. "Then Tosh figures out a way to recharge the weapon. I mean, if Torchwood built it, she can surely rebuild it."

Tosh shook her head. "Actually, it doesn't so much look built as.."

"Accidental," Ianto finished.

Jack leaned against the bullhorn. "Aren't you lot forgetting the reason I got into this situation?"

"You couldn't keep your hands off something that was longer than it was wide?"

Owen looked pleased with himself as Gwen tried to snort half her muffin out her nose. Tosh's hand rose to cover her mouth and Ianto tried, unsuccessfully to keep from laughing.

"Et tu Ianto? Never mind," Jack waved off his apology. "The point is that Direwu may be eating squirrels now but as it adds to its body mass, it'll start needing larger and larger prey. In less than a week you'll be wondering where the post man went."

"And if there's a chance there's less than a full charge in the weapon, we'll need to take it out while it's still small," Gwen added.

"Exactly!" Jack pointed at her and Ianto tried not to think of never feeling the touch of Jack's hands again. Or at least never feeling them and not having them remind him of gerbil feet. And it wasn't far from Jack touching him to Jack having sex with him to Jack being the size of a gerbil to Richard Gere…

Gwen thumped him on the back as he choked on his coffee.

Jack shot a look up at Ianto that Ianto ignored then used a corner of the handkerchief he was wearing, to wipe off the spatters. "Tosh, you're sure the weapon is what recharged the rod?"

"Pretty sure, yes, but…"

"Then we kill two birds with one stone. We toss the rod to the Direwu and shoot them both at the same time."

" _We_ shoot them both at the same time," Owen corrected. "You can't go out like that."

"We'll bring the charged rod right back," Gwen started but Tosh cut her off.

"Jack needs to be there. Even if the charge takes, I can't guarantee it'll hold long enough to get it back to the Hub."

"I'll ride in Ianto's pocket. Let's go."

"Trouser pocket?" Owen asked as Ianto set his cupped hand on the table by Jack. "By his…"

"In his breast pocket," Jack replied, as he climbed on board and wrapped his arms around Ianto's thumb. "By his heart."

Given the lack of reaction, Ianto figured he was the only who'd heard the second part of Jack's statement. Owen, at least, wouldn't have let it go. Shagging the boss was one thing. Loving him…

He risked a small caress as he slid Jack into his pocket and got an appreciative wriggle in return.

 

***

The same electro magnetic field that disrupted the tasers also kept them from narrowing their search parameters to anything under a three block radius. Fortunately, the Direwu liked to float down onto its prey from above…

"Not exactly fortunate if you're the prey," Gwen pointed out.

…and preferred to spend it's time when it wasn't hunting, basking in the sun.

Ianto tipped his head back. "So we search the rooftops then."

They found it just before lunch.

"It looks like a stack of bin bags," Ianto muttered as Gwen and Tosh crept closer. Gwen with the energy weapon because she was the best shot given that Jack was out of the picture and Tosh with the rod because, as an abortive attempt at a Torchwood cricket team had proven, she had a wickedly accurate throwing arm.

The Direwu's edges began to ruffle.

"It's going to make a run for it!" Jack yelled, hanging over the edge of Ianto's pocket.

Ianto passed on the warning although he wasn't convinced _run_ was the best verb given the Direwu's complete absence of legs.

"On three!" Gwen sounded remarkably calm considering they were facing an alien bin bag. "One, two…" She raised the weapon and Tosh cocked her arm. "Three!"

The rod tumbled end over end, gleaming obsidian in the sun, smacked into the Direwu, dead center and with a noise like an oyster being sucked from its shell was absorbed just as the entire creature was bathed in a brilliant green light. It began to thrash, edges flipping up and down. A half digested squirrel, two blobs that could have been pigeons, and the rod went flying across the roof.

"I've got it!" Owen raced toward the rod as the Direwu gave one final quiver and flopped down to lie still against the asphalt. He grabbed it, shook a blob of something off it, and squinted down at the gauge. "It's black! How do we know if it's charged?"

"Just point and shoot!" Gwen snapped.

Hand half way to his pocket to lift Jack free, Ianto froze.

The next few minutes were a little confusing. There was green light, a pain in his chest, the sound of cloth tearing and then he was flat on his back on the roof with a very naked Captain Jack Harkness lying on top of him.

Blue eyes crinkled at the corners. "You okay?"

"You're a little heavy, but I'll cope."

"Sorry about your suit. Torchwood will pay for a new jacket."

Ianto couldn't stop himself from running a hand down the long line of Jack's back. "Whole new suit, please."

"Greedy."

He stroked the curve of Jack's ass. "Yes."

"I don't suppose you thought to bring my clothes?"

Actually he hadn't.

Jack read the answer off his face and grinned. "Good thing there's still your handkerchief then."

"You're significantly larger than ten centimeters now," Ianto pointed out, raising one eyebrow in the way he knew drove Jack wild.

"Significantly?" The crinkles reappeared. "Flatterer."

"Oh for God's sake, get a room," Owen snorted. "And you're lucky this worked at all," he continued as Jack shifted and Ianto grunted a protest. "You can only see the stupid gauge while you're shooting and power level was dropping fast."

As Jack rolled over off Ianto and onto the roof, swearing quietly when his bare back hit the heated asphalt, Owen dropped his jacket over the other man's crotch.

"Prude," Ianto sighed.

Owen spread his hands. "I'm just thinking of the women."

"Well, stop," Gwen told him, smacking his shoulder. "Good to have you back to your full size, Captain."

Jack glanced down at the jacket. "Is it noticeable?"

 

***

"I could hear it when I was in your pocket, your heart beating." Head pillowed on Ianto's shoulder, Jack spread his hand out over his chest, one finger gently tapping the rhythm. "Boom-boom. Boom-boom. Boom-boom. It was comforting. No, grounding."

"How?" Ianto wondered, trailing one finger through the sweat drying on Jack's back just to feel the other man shiver.

"Reminded me of what was real."

"Handy thing to have in this job, all things considered."

"Handy thing to have in any job," Jack pointed out. "What would you have done if we'd had to wait for the rod to recharge over time?"

Ianto would have shrugged but Jack's weight held him in place, reminding him of what was real. "Killed you to see if the size reset. Turned Gwen loose in a dollhouse store if it didn't." He turned his head just far enough to press a kiss into Jack's hair. "Figured out a way to make the best of things."

He could feel Jack's grin against his skin. "Kinky. Speaking of kinky, you planning on telling me why you choked on your coffee this morning?"

"That had nothing to do with…"

"Boom, boom, boom." Jack tapped faster. "You're lying."

"Fine. But I'm not going to tell you."

"Was it very naughty?"

"Jack."

"Okay. It's a tall order but I can be the bigger man about this. I don't want to make too big a thing about it. I'm sure it's not enormously important…"

There was only one way to shut Jack up when he got going like this.

Not that Ianto minded. Especially since it certainly chased away thoughts of gerbils. Although he did have to work very hard to not think of alien bin bags that swallowed things whole…

\--end--


End file.
